Architecture

Morning News Roundup: Dec. 12, 2013

Architecture news and views from around the nation and beyond.

A Tree of Sleds: Budapest, Hungary-based design firm Hello Wood constructed a 36 foot-Christmas tree made of 365 sleighs. The wooden tree is displayed in front of the Palace of the Arts at the riverbank of the Danube. The best part? After the holiday season, the sleighs will be donated to the SOS Children’s Village, the world's largest charity dedicated to orphaned and abandoned children. [Hello Wood]

Gingerbread house showdown

Let them eat gingerbread: A competition heated up once again this year between two of San Francisco’s oldest and ritziest hotels. Fairmont and Westin St. Francis have been dualing for year with candy exhibits displayed in their lobbies. Only the Fairmont’s gingerbread house is entirely edible, begging the question “is it really a gingerbread house if you can’t eat it all?” [SF Gate]

Guinness World Record-breaker: As a fundraiser for a hospital in Bryan, Texas, over 200 volunteers helped construct a gingerbread house totaling 39,201.8 cubic feet. The project required a building permit, 7,200 pounds of flour, 7,200 eggs, approximately 3,000 pounds of brown sugar, 1,800 pounds of butter and 22,304 pieces of candy. At 20.11 feet high, 60 feet wide and 42 feet deep, the candy house broke the world record for the largest in the world. [Gizmag]

White House replica: Watch how White House pastry chefs made this 300-pound gingerbread reproduction of the president’s home, featuring Bo and Sunny, along with a functioning lawn fountain. [The White House Blog]

More news:

Credit: Courtesy of SOM

Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designs the first skyscraper capable of generating its own power. The building will serve as the new headquarters for the Indonesian state-owned oil and gas corporation, Pertamina. According to the firm, the building has been “precisely calibrated for Jakarta’s proximity to the equator, the tower’s curved facade will mitigate solar heat gain throughout the year.” [Sploid]

The St. Louis Art Museum bought a $825,000 Frank Light Wright-designed chandelier to add to its growing Wright collection. The 1908 chandelier, titled “Ceiling Lamp,” is one of two from the Wright-designed Francis W. Little House, in Peoria, Ill. [stltoday.com]